57. More Pressure Cooking Tips

I am so overwhelmed by the interest and views pressure-cooking posts have been generating. I hope we all continue to benefit from our pressure-cookers but that we also strive to exercise care and caution with them to prevent mishaps. In today’s post I share a link teaching 5 amazing pressure-cooker rice and grain tips that I benefited from and felt would benefit others as well. I also wanted to discuss a bit on the electric pressure-cooker lid.

Many people I find, don’t realise that the electric pressure- pot lid has a rubber seal and plate attached to the underside of it, that can be detached. These should be removed and rinsed separately after use, when rinsing your lid.( for hygiene purposes) Then simply slot them back in after using, taking care to push it in correctly such a way that your knob ( for removing the plate) is exposed.

If your domestics are washing your pot for you, ensure that they are taught how to wash these parts carefully too so that they don’t damage the non-stick pot or delicate lid, plate and rubber. Also please note that the bolt on the lid should be tightened whenever it loosens. This bolt is usually concealed and many get worried when their pressure cooker lid-knob gets loose, feeling helpless to remedy it. Refer to pic to see where it is located. Happy Pressure-Cooking!!!

The pressure cooker can make quick work of tough whole grains and perfectly steam white rice to its full fluffy potential but a few wrong moves can have starch spraying into your kitchen or, worse, turn your grains into gruel. Here are my do’s and don’ts to get perfectly cooked grains without the drama.

1. DO check timing and ratio before you go. Each grain requires its own exacting amount of liquid to re-hydrate fully and not burst into a runny porridge. For example, soaked Basmati rice just needs one cup of water to one cup of rice while steel-cut oats need three. Look-up the rice or grain-type in the pressure cooking time chart its recommended cooking time and liquid requirements.

2. DON’T fill-up the pressure cooker. Like, ever. The rice, or grain, and their cooking liquid should never fill the pressure cooker more than half-way. These foods expand to once, twice, three times already – you don’t want them to get anywhere near the lid of the pressure cooker (where all of the safety systems reside).

3. DO fatten it up to keep it from foaming up. Add a bit of oil, butter, ghee or any fat that matches your recipe into the pressure cooker along with the grains and cooking liquid. The fat will reduce the amount of foam that is generated while the rice or grain cook under pressure.

4. DON’T rush it! Almost all rice and grains should be opened using the 10-minute Natural Release method. This adds an equivalent of 5 minutes of low pressure cooking time using only the cooker’s residual heat and energy. More importantly, it is one the most delicate pressure cooker opening methods, which ensures no foam or starch comes spraying out of the valve when you open the cooker.

5. DO bain marie-it for tricky pressure cookers. For pressure cookers, especially those that rattle, jiggle or huff-and-puff to maintain pressure, cook rice in a heat-proof container inside the pressure cooker. We call this pressure cooker bain marie (also known as “pan-in-pot”) – this technique cooks the rice, or grain, more delicately and uses the same recommended grain-to-liquid ratios and cooking times.